Can we make forum suggestions here?

[Yog]

It's mainly used for moderation / admin requests though (such as changing character name). I guess news is what the main portal is for. But no one ever posts news. And announcements are shown up as stickies in the forums anyway. vv

[Atreyu]

Hmmm, maybe people can just PM their requests, or if need be use the main discussion forum?

Gets rid of another barely used forum. Come to think of it, I've seen a number of sites that operate fine without a communications (or equivalent) forum.

Regarding Portal News, yes it's linked to the news feed on the main page. As for lack of news posts, I actually raised that issue about a year ago - maybe it needs another look (my proposal then was to simply have the news feed linked directly to our SW Roleplaying forum - that way you are always ensured of posts every day, and since we're a primarily SW site it fits the theme)

[Yog]

The way I see, it there are only two ways to solve the news issue.

1. You need some really active people posting them (those don't grow on trees). If I were a correspondent, I would probably only post non RP and non SW stuff, so I would probably not be a good candidate.

or

2. Get some sort of an automated feed of what's going on at the forums (like you suggested).



Edit: on the note of #2, there is a recent thread box on the portal, but I am guessing that's not exactly what you have in mind.

[Atreyu]

Edit: on the note of #2, there is a recent thread box on the portal, but I am guessing that's not exactly what you have in mind.

Not really, my idea a year ago was to have the actual News item be drawn directly from the SW RP forum - I made this suggestion on the memory of when we first moved to vB back in 2001 where Nup and Ogre had it linked to that forum as a temporary measure.

(in other words, where the News is, it would show the 1st post of the most recently created RP thread - thereby ensuring that there would be a new item at least every couple of days as people continue to post new RP threads)

Having said that, our portal news was last updated in mid-January, which isn't really that long ago, and has more or less seen regular updates every 1-2 months. I guess it's a question of how often it needs to be updated and whether that update schedule is still too slow.

[Yog]

I guess your idea about RP thread thing on portal is better than news updates every month or so..

Personally, I think in order for a news portal to be useful, there should be updates every few days or so, rather than months. That is why I never look at the portal, just the main forum index.

[Dasquian Belargic]

With regard to the news portal... what kind of news would you want to see on the front page? Real world news, or RPing related news? If it's the former, I wouldn't say that's really the focus of our forums. The latter... I'm not sure there is enough 'news' to generate something every few days. Currently, we have a few wonderful members contributing content as and when they can, but unless someone volunteers to post news on a much more regular basis, I can't see it happening.

I don't think that really reflects badly on us, though. The portal does show that there is activity every day, within the forums themselves.

What about, for example, if we incorporated something to do with the Wiki into the Operations/News forum?

[Atreyu]

That's a possible idea. Again it really depends how often we expect it 'should' be updated - backtracking through all the old News posts it seems Dakota kept up fairly well up until around August last year, then dropped off a bit until starting again in December and into January (though nothing yet for February).

Anyways, this discussion seems to veer every which way depending on the latest suggestion. So I've edited my original post with a (hopefully) easy-to-follow summary of all the ideas that have been presented so far including original author plus the reaction (so far) to them. I'm hoping we can get some more input into the suggestions made here, plus even some other ideas that we may not have considered yet.

[Yog]

I like the idea of integrating the Wiki.

With regard to the news portal... what kind of news would you want to see on the front page? Real world news, or RPing related news?

I was thinking more like community news, such as LD's movie polls, Burning Nerd updates, Box office / NFL pickem contest, "post a pic of yourself", stuff like that.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Integrating the wiki, and a lot of other ideas, are based around two factors as far as I see it.

1) Participation. As has been mentioned, Dakota Gue has been writing us wonderful updates now and then - but this is a purely voluntary thing, that she does as and when she has the inspiration to do so. I know that others have expressed interest in writing 'news' for the Portal, whether that be IC articles like Dakota's, or something else entirely - but as always, it is down to the posters themselves exactly what kind of content they provide, and when. If you personally would like to contribute to something like this, by all means let the staff know

2) Technology. Is it possible to make the forum do what we want it to? Are there existing hacks and whatnot that will allow us to integrate various aspects of the forum into the portal? Ogre is the most knowledgeable in this respect, so any ideas we dream up would have to be ultimately vetted through the Big Green One.



The other points you have mentioned Atreyu, I will save commenting on for now. I'd like to hear more from the rest of the forums

[Tear]

That's a possible idea. Again it really depends how often we expect it 'should' be updated - backtracking through all the old News posts it seems Dakota kept up fairly well up until around August last year, then dropped off a bit until starting again in December and into January (though nothing yet for February).

Dakota's being doing an amazing job of it. Especially since it was never asked of her in the first place. She just stepped up to the plate and filled the role.

If you want more or expect more frequent updates I suggest filling that role by providing the content.

I was thinking more like community news, such as LD's movie polls, Burning Nerd updates, Box office / NFL pickem contest, "post a pic of yourself", stuff like that.

I could see a bi-weekly summary post of those community events you mentioned. Like the most "hot topics" on the boards from each forum, like gaming or RP discussion:

ie: check out the Bioshock 2 thread or the new Sith order planning thread.

Again this would need to be actively done by someone in the community and done diligently enough not to just spam garbage over the portal. Because, lets be honest here, these forums can be slow at times and posting empty updates just for the sake of updates might shove something like the dakota reports(which takes time and effort to create) down into oblivion for no one to see.

[Atreyu]

Again this would need to be actively done by someone in the community and done diligently enough not to just spam garbage over the portal.

This. More stuff on the portal is great, but it has to be relevant and of interest.

::thinks::

Maybe we can do something as simple as keep and eye out for threads of interest (such as Tear's examples) and simply copy the initial first post, create a new thread within the portal news plus a direct link to the original discussion?

[example]

Forming a new Jedi Order (posted in RP Discussion)
It has now come time for all Jedi to form and blah blah blah blah ... (rest of post)

::Poster copies initial post::

::reposts in News Portal::

Forming a new Jedi Order
It has now come time for all Jedi to form and blah blah blah blah ... (rest of post)
To follow this discussion click here

[/example]

Would that work?

My next question would be what's the requirements to post in the News forum? (I assume not everyone can just go and create a new thread when they feel like it)

[Dasquian Belargic]

Threads posted to the Frontpage News forum currently require moderator approval. So, I believe anyone could post a thread in there but a moderator would have to approve it before it appeared on the portal.

[Atreyu]

That would work quite alright then.

[Atreyu]

Just read s'Il's idea for a sports forum in the Collecting poll thread - I've made my comments there.

However, it's brought up another idea. S'Il has suggested naming the sports forum Coruscant Sports Bar or The Player's Lounge or something along those lines.

My idea - could we do this with our other 'general' forums too? I've already made the suggestion of renaming 'General Discussion' to something a bit more SW-like. Could we also do this with forums like General Gaming as well? (I dunno, maybe 'Play Free or Die Hard' ... ok maybe that's lame but you get my point ). Maybe even Boxoffice & Other Media can get similar treatment?


EDIT: borrowing Yog's proposed forum layout from earlier, it could look something like this:

General
- Anchorhead / Tosche Station / Cantina / whatever SW name we come up with
- Boxoffice & Media (can't think of a name - what was the name for the opera thing Palpatine and Anakin saw in Ep. 3? ... EDIT: it was the Galaxies Opera House)
- Coruscant Sports Bar
- Play Free or Die Hard
- Starving Artists Apartment
- Operations & News

Roleplaying
- SW Roleplaying
- General Roleplaying
- Roleplaying Discussion
- Roleplaying Archives

Roleplaying Factions
- The Hive
- The Jedi Enclave
- Empire/Rebellion
- Dark Mosaic

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I suggested the renaming thing a few years ago and the other admins shot it down. I am in favor of it though.

[Atreyu]

Why do I have the feeling I was one of those admins?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

You weren't. :mneh It was after your time. I don't think we were admins at the same time.

[Atreyu]

Oh good :: phew ::

Done a bit more tinkering with suggested forum names. I think we might be able to get a full SW-name theme happening with pretty much all of them, which would suit us as a SW site.

Here's my latest list:

General
- Anchorhead / Tosche Station / Cantina / etc (General Discussion)
- Galaxies Opera House (Boxoffice & Other Media) **
- Coruscant Sports Bar (Sports)
- The Trench Run (General Gaming) ***
- Starving Artists Apartment (same)
- Operations & News (same)

Roleplaying
- SW Roleplaying
- General Roleplaying
- Roleplaying Discussion

Roleplaying Groups
- The Jedi Enclave
- Empire/Rebellion
- The Hive
- Dark Mosaic
- Roleplaying Archives



**Galaxies Opera House - from Ep 3 where Palpatine and Anakin met (and Palpatine told him about Darth Plagueis
***The Trench Run - there's an iPhone SW game called this, plus was a level in the Rebel Assault games

[Dasquian Belargic]

I've put up a topic in Gen Disc to take suggestions on what to name the forum, since Big Green has given that the go-ahead.

Adding a sports forum seems like a neat idea

[Atreyu]

Bit late now, but I would have thought it'd be better to first see if my proposed 'SW-theme' naming for all the general forums was a goer first, as that would dictate what naming we would want to use.

Oh well.